Sophie agonises, plus pavlova

I haven't really worked out in my own head what is worthy of being blogged about. Do just random thoughts count, or does something have to have happened? I'm not even in Brazil yet, but I have thoughts that I want to express. Should they be going in my diary, rather than in this slightly more public place? What do people even want to know about? Are my increasingly hysterical mood swings of any interest to anyone? The only answer is to write what I feel like writing, and if you, dearest reader, aren't interested, than this is my big red flag now saying stop, it isn't going to get any better.

I don't know how I'm feeling. One minute I'm over the moon- I have a host family, who are amazing people and we've been emailing and everything is wonderful and I'm going to Brazil, which is pretty darn amazing just in itself and packing is exciting and I'm off on an adventure. On the other hand, what am I doing with my life? Saying goodbye is the hardest thing I could ever do, and I have to say goodbye over and over and over. The last couple of weeks have been full of goodbyes. Some of them I say that we'll see each other again, but I know that that's not guaranteed. It certainly feels permanent. And there are still 12 days to go. 12 more days of goodbye, and terrified. Sometimes really random little things make everything better though. Like today when I was in Whitcoulls looking for a Portuguese dictionary, and the Whitcoulls lady told me about her sister who lived in New Caledonia and learnt French, and it was such a comfort. Random Whitcoulls lady, whoever you are, you made my day.

In other news, I made my first pavlova today! I'm such a kiwi... I'm supposed to make New Zealand food for AFS things while I'm in Brazil, apparently, so pavlova it is. Also exciting, I figured out how to add photos to my blog. Next steps: taking good photos...

Oh, by the way, there were earthquakes. That was fun. Here's hoping there aren't any while I'm away- wouldn't want to miss out or anything.

Host family...

This is the first blog post where I've actually had something to say, yet somehow it's harder to know what to say. Today, finally, I heard about my host family. Disclaimer here: most of what I know is what google is telling me, with a fair dose of wikipedia, so don't quote me.

So, I'll be living in Frederico Westphalen (the name sounds very German or something to me, apparently there were German, Polish and Italain immigrants) which is a smallish town (like about the size of Blenheim) in the very south of Brazil, in Rio Grande do Sul state. Thankfully this is not the hottest part of Brazil- at least in winter temperatures seem to be maybe similar to New Zealand, but it does get rather hotter in summer- things to look forward to... It looks from google maps to be quite close to the border with Argentina, but Brazil is so huge that might actually mean 10 hours drive, I don't really know. My family live in an apartment on the main road. I will be living with a mum and dad, and younger sister (I think she's 11), and there is also an older brother who is at uni, but visits home often. Um...what else do you want to know? I'm not really sure about my school, because the school they said I would be going to doesn't look like it's actually a school- more like the Brazilian equivalent of a polytech, so I'm talking to AFS about that...

I don't know how much I can say about my family- I only have the little profile thing they write, which doesn't actually say much. They seem nice... The list of their hobbies and interests was veeery long (and included SOCCER not football, just by the way). They are catholic, and I assume attend the cathedral that is 2 blocks from where they live. It's a very nice cathedral. I appreciate it's catherdralyness.

Sonja asked me to comment on the local monkeys, so I googled 'frederico westphalen monkeys', and found only that someone is selling a capuchin monkey baby for 1500 euros. Sorry Sonja. I will update you on the monkey situation when I arrive. On the subject of waterfalls, the website for the town has a picture of a waterfall, so they must be hiding one somewhere.

That's all I can think of to say for now... I'm excited. Perhaps it's beginning to feel a bit more real. These people who I've never met in my life want me to come and live with them. Isn't that a strange thought...

Tchau
Sophie

What does one title a post like this?

I just remembered I had this blog as a place for writing stuff about Brazil, so I thought I would. You may have noticed the riots in Brazil at the moment (is it weird to be writing in second person?). I'm starting to get a bit worried about those. As far as I can tell one person has been killed in Sao Paulo. When it was just in the biggest cities I was okay, but now its spread to more of the country I worry. I don't want anything to stop me going now, after going through all the process of preparing to go. Not just the form filling and paying stuff, but also the emotional rollercoaster that it's been (and that's before I even leave the country). There is a tiny voice in me that says, perhaps it would be easier if I couldn't go. i could just go back to life as normal. wouldn't normal be nice...But that voice needs to shut up, because I'm actually excited, and it would be awful if it all fell through. Not that it will.

On the other hand, these protests have made me very aware of another side of Brazil that I hadn't thought much about. It's still very much a developing country, with millions of people living in extreme poverty. At least partly I want to support the protests. Huge amounts of money are being spent on hosting two sporting events, that the vast majority of Brazil aren't going to be able to afford to attend. It seems a case of messed up priority. Sure, Brazil is a football mad, but most of that football is the barefoot in an alleyway with shoes as the goals sort of football, rather than the multimillion dollar stadium with hundreds of millions of viewers kind. I guess as a student who doesn't even speak Portuguese there's not much world-saving I can do, but I sure would like to. And I don't even yet know that much. I haven't experienced any of this, I'm just pretending to be knowledgable, when really all I have is the helpful aid of google telling me things. Perhaps I will have know better in 6 months time...


In other news, i have a host family. Which sounds like it ought to be really exciting, but actually it's not. As yet I know absolutely nothing about them, other than that they exist. It's weird to think that there is a family somewhere in Brazil who know who I am, and are expecting me in 6 weeks, but I have no idea. But I should hear more in the next week or so, so you'll probably hear from me again soon.

Loves :)
Sophie

Bem Vindo!

Ola!

Look! I have a blog! I actually made it ages ago, back when I was like yay, brazil, must do all the things. Now I'm more like aaaaaaah, brazil, must do all the things, can't, eek, help, die. So that is where this blog begins. The plan is to blog at least twice a month (this is the deal made with my sisters, so must of course be stuck to like glue). It is yet to be seen whether than actually happens. My understanding is that such resolutions have an approximately zero percent success rate, but I'm an optimist at heart :) I don't quite know what the appropriate tone for one of these things is- beautifully edited poetry? whatever runs through my head, complete with nonexistent grammar? I'm leaning towards the second. I can do that.

On to the purpose of this blog... For those who don't know (people are actually reading this? who am i kidding?), in exactly eight weeks minus a few hours I'm hopping on a plane, and heading to Brazil for a year on an AFS exchange. I will be living with a Brazilian family, and going to school, and hopefully learning to speak Portuguese (if I don't i will die, so lets say yes definitely learning to speak Portuguese). So pretty much the biggest adventure of my life so far. It is taking quite a bit of effort at the moment to remind myself that this is an adventure, and it is something I want to be doing, and it will be good; in the face of the dawning realisation of just how huge this is. A year. In which I will see no one who I have ever met before in my life. In a language that I couldn't talk with a five year old in. Living with strangers. It's huger than huge. I'm currently feeling all the emotions that you can possibly think of about the whole thing. Which gets messy. But it's all good.

Yeah, that's about me for now. I will be back when exciting things like host families happen.

Tchau!